.

to be sullied by cursing,” he noted calmly.

      The young woman did not reply to his criticism in words. She scowled.

      George did not appreciate being scowled at, even by so pretty a young woman. Nevertheless, he easily managed to hide his annoyance. “Have I found a damsel in distress?” he asked lightly.

      Still no response, just impertinent, sullen silence. A rather familiar sullen silence, George realized. His expression altered ever so slightly, although his voice remained as unconcerned as ever. “Or are you, perchance, a horse thief?”

      The woman made a sniff of derision.

      “Ah, I have it!” he cried, suddenly triumphant, and he saw her eyes widen with surprise and dismay before he continued with mock seriousness. “You came here for a secret rendezvous!”

      “How dare you say such a thing, you—” she declared indignantly, her brown eyes full of angry scorn.

      The steward moved his mount closer. “Have a care, wench,” he warned. “Don’t you know to whom—”

      “Richard, please!” George interrupted calmly. “It doesn’t do to frighten the peasants.”

      “No, it don’t,” the young woman confirmed, a slight hint of a smile playing about her lips, while the expression in her eyes turned distinctly mischievous.

      The steward gave the woman a disapproving look before he moved his horse back.

      “Tell me,” George asked in his most charming tone of voice, “is it much farther to Sir Thomas Dugall’s castle?”

      “’Bout a mile,” the wench replied with an unexpectedly graceful shrug of her shoulders.

      “Do you belong to the castle?”

      “Aye, me lord.”

      “And your horse has abandoned you, not a lover?”

      “Aye, me lord. He run off. I’ll catch him soon enough. Good day, me lord.”

      Clearly, she assumed he would accept that as a dismissal.

      But George didn’t like being dismissed, by anyone. “Would you care for assistance?”

      She met his magnanimous offer with a burst of hearty, throaty laughter. It was by far the most robust laugh George had ever heard a female make, and its sheer pleasure made him smile in response, although he felt frustrated more than anything.

      “I take it that’s a refusal,” he observed.

      “Oh, aye, me lord,” the wench confirmed after she had stopped laughing. “He’ll go home right enough.”

      George was tempted to think of some excuse to continue this conversation, but the impatient movement of his troops behind him was not encouraging. Besides, he would be seeing this unusual young woman soon enough, anyway.

      “Very well, then, since you are not in distress, I bid you good-day.” He bowed politely and noticed with a pleasure he did not reveal that she bobbed a curtsy. Then he signaled his men to continue on their way.

      As they did so, he noticed that the young woman grinned slyly before her head disappeared back through the hedge.

      The steward drew beside him. “Gracious God, Sir George,” Sir Richard Jolliet said. “What a saucy wench! She had to know she was talking to a nobleman.” He nodded toward the pennant snapping in the breeze, carried by a nearby soldier. “And she says she belongs to Dugall Castle? I could more easily believe she spends all her time tending sheep. Alone.”

      Sir George smiled at his retainer. “Oh, come now, Richard. Her manner was impertinent, but let us consider the household.”

      “Indeed,” Richard agreed.

      It was well known that Sir Thomas Dugall’s household was lacking in a woman’s gentle touch. His wife had died years ago, after the birth of their only daughter. Since that time, the household had consisted almost entirely of men, and that included not just Sir Thomas and his six sons, but the servants, as well.

      “A pretty creature, for all that,” Richard mused aloud.

      “I suppose, if one could see beyond the dirt,” George replied with a purposefully cavalier tone.

      Inwardly, however, he was quite astonished at how much he had enjoyed his unexpected encounter. It was not in his common experience to be spoken to in so blunt a manner, and he found it rather refreshing.

      “Well, I thank the Lord we have no such impertinent wenches at Ravensloft.”

      With a wry smile, George looked at his steward. “I would take care how you speak of that young woman when we get to Dugall Castle,” he said. “Despite her clever playacting, she is not a peasant. That was Aileas, Sir Thomas’s daughter.”

      - Richard’s jaw dropped. “That...that...she, Sir Thomas’s daughter?”

      “I am absolutely certain of it,” George replied evenly. “To be sure, she is much grown from the last time I saw her, but I recognized her eyes nearly at once.”

      Indeed, how could he forget those flashing brown eyes? It had been years, but he would never forget Aileas Dugall’s eyes as long as he lived.

      “That is the woman your father wanted you to marry?”

      “Yes.”

      “That creature—when surely he knew that Sir Thomas Dugall is not a man to part with so much as an acre of land? What possible reason could a man have to take her?”

      “Perhaps because he enjoys a challenge?” George offered noncommittally.

      “I think she would certainly prove to be that,” the steward acknowledged pensively.

      “It’s not as if Aileas Dugall is a complete stranger to me,” George observed. “I knew her when we were children.”

      “Yet you rarely went to Dugall Castle, my lord,” Richard remarked. “And they never came to Ravensloft.” The steward frowned in puzzlement. “Why would she pretend to be a peasant?”

      “Her idea of a jest, I suppose,” George said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I wonder if she recognized me, too?”

      “She must have, by the pennants.”

      “Yes, yes, of course,” George murmured. And if she did, he thought, what did she think of me?

      Although he did not believe he had acquitted himself poorly in their recent conversation, he had planned that this reunion of sorts be conducted with the utmost courtesy and formality—not an impromptu conversation through a hedge.

      What other young woman of his acquaintance could swear like the most battle-hardened foot soldier? What other marriageable noblewoman would be riding about the countryside alone, her hair as wild as a bird’s nest? Who else would pretend to be a peasant when meeting the man who was quite possibly going to be her future husband?

      “But, my lord—if you will forgive my saying so—why should you marry her? You can have your choice of several eligible young ladies of good family and fortune.”

      “My father thought an alliance with Sir Thomas and his sons a good idea, since they are a fractious bunch. If we are not allied, who knows what they might decide to do, once freed of their father’s restraining hand?” Indeed, he recalled Aileas’s brothers as a brood of rambunctious, combative louts seemingly bent on breaking one another’s bones.

      Sir Richard shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “Surely they would never attack you!”

      “I doubt it, but since no particular young lady has captured my fancy, why not pay Sir Thomas a visit? There seems little harm in it.”

      “Or any great good, either,” Richard noted bluntly. He caught George’s eye and spoke with more deference. “Forgive me for asking this, my lord, but since your father